The creative process has been strong throughout my life
I was born in Plymouth, England, immigrated to Canada in 1964 and was raised in north Toronto. For the past thirty-some years I have resided in rural Grey County in the heart of Niagara Escarpment country. I currently live on an idyllic 4-acre wooded property with my partner, Bonnie Gardiner.
The creative process has been strong throughout my life – from the time I could first hold a crayon. I attended C.W. Jeffries in North York, a high school with a dedicated arts program, followed by four years post secondary schooling at the Ontario College of Art, now OCAD U.
I worked in the commercial art field, raising a family and paying the bills, while developing and exploring my craft. I am an avid painter working mostly in acrylics although on occasion I work in oils, water colour and cold wax (similar to encaustics). My paintings are in a number of galleries in Ontario and Nova Scotia and I can be found on the internet by googling my name – or ‘good looking guys’. I am also a closet sculptor, working in metal, concrete and wood; however the sculpting I do only for myself.
Striving always to improve my craft has led me to teach. Although reluctant at first, I started a painting group, Studio Twenty, where artists or artist-wanna-be’s could come to paint and where I shared some tidbits of information on how to paint. This led to a greater understanding of how to teach what I know and to my authoring three books on how to paint in acrylics, along with multiple paid and youtube videos.Twenty has developed into a group of talented painters who have also raised more than $20,000 for our community and local charities through donated paintings.